I'm austrian and living in France. I'm vegan since 3 years when I read "Vegan Freak", decided to just give it a try for 3 weeks and never turned back. I love animals and outdoor sports. This is also why 4 siberian huskies are living with us. Please don't hate me, we got them before I became vegan (I got thrown out of another vegan forum for saying this)!

I have done 10 years of Shotokan Karate und love running with or without my dogs. I have done two halfmarathons, the last one in 1:52 hours. I have never lifted weights bevore. Last October I stumbled upon the FB page of a former school collegue and found out she is doing bodybuilding now. I became curious and then interested. I decided to give it a try this winter, in my running off-season. My husband got into weight training at the same time, so we decided to by a squat rack to complete our equipment. My husband (non-vegan) is training in a gym, I am training alone at home.

The first 3 months I have eased myself progressively into this new sport, starting with very low weights und increasing by 2kg every workout, doing 3x15reps. End of January I decided to continue training for maximum strength increase. Doing 3x5reps, modifying my training program and aiming to gain 1.5kg/month during the following 3 months. I have now achieved this phase and am really proud to be able to squat 100kg, deadlift 92kg and bench press 48kg at 63kg bodyweight.

It must be the Karate, I have found out that I have really strong legs and a really weak upper body.

Now I will start my running season again, loose 5kg and aim for a 21km trail in september!

First error: My huskies come from a (very good) breeder and I therefore "promote production of dogs and their treatement like material and not living, sensible beings".Second error: As they are sleddogs (two of them former professionnal sleddogs living their retirement with us) and LOVING to work out I actually let them pull during winter season. Which is bad for a vegan, so it seems.

So if this bothers you, I would rather not discuss this subject here but stay with strength training, muscles, running and all the other sports I like doing! If not, I LOVE to talk about our dogs of course!

I'm in the South of France --where it is too hot for Siberian Husky Dogs.

I am also planning to do all of my weight-lifting at home: I'm putting together a power-lifting kit (so that I never need to go to a gym again, etc.). I am currently dealing with getting the equipment delivered (etc.) --this type of thing is neither simple nor easy here.

There are very few vegans in France --and I'm highly motivated to connect to any vegans within 1000 km of where I'm now living.

The members of this forum will not kick you out for owning dogs: they are remakably polite and supportive even toward people who eat meat (!) so I don't think they'll attack you for feeding meat to dogs. In general, of course, it would be easier for a vegan to have a (grass-eating) mountain goat for a pet, rather than a (meat eating) dog sled team.

You're probably aware that small numbers of highly-motivated vegans manage to feed their dogs a vegan diet (...yeah, they have websites). It seems like a lot of work (but, in general, owning a dog is a lot of work!).

I have to admit, I have never met a french vegan before! I'm living in the countryside between Chambéry and Lyon and I'm absolutely the only vegan (and even vegetarian) I know. People don't even know what vegan is, but I have never had any problems. I cook a lot to compensate for all the things one cannot buy here (cakes, good seitan stuff, ...) and people are somewhat bewildered but they always accept my weirdness (I don't leave them any choice anyway!).

I got my equipment second hand and really cheap (boncoin.fr). It is Decathlon material : a squat rack, a bench, barbells and dumbbells. All together they cost me only 170 Euros!

I know , I just love my dogs! I could talk hours and hours about them. How even though they come more or less from the same family and hat more or less the same raising, they are soooo different in character! I speak of them as persons and honestly, they DO understand everything I say! Ok, not everybody, but I'm sure for Daika and her father, Jaakko.

Jaakko is my avatar because he was a really, really special dog that touched me more than any other dog. We got him when he was already 11 years old and we had only 4 years with him. He was extremely intelligent, used to be leader of a pack of 25 (!) dogs and he was just my idol. I always say that I would like to be able to interact with people the way Jaakko did with dogs, be it at work or at home. Sometime he did things or understood things that were just spooky, so deep was his understanding of the things around him. He was a wise dog that knew things I will never know. And this even though he barely knew us and he had a rather sparse upbringing (1 year with his breeder, a finish breeder and musher; 10 years with a french musher, living in a husky pack in the middle of the forest and knowing only pack life and sled pulling) with not very intense human contact.

Daika really is his daugther, as intelligent as him but really, really crazy, as she is only 5 years old. She grew up with us, she has spent her first year 24 hours per day with us, even coming to work with my husband. She reminds me a lot of Jaakko and I am very happy about it.

I have put quite some videos of them online until 2 years ago. Be it daily life, training or sledding. This is why the youngsters are still puppies on the videos, Jaakko is still "young" and even Berny, my first dog and little warrior who died at age 15 after years of health problems (arthritis, paralysis,... lots of pain!).

Life and play

Education of the dogs

Roots can't wait to go sledding (the only one of our huskies who lives and dies for sledding!)

I have three dachshunds and I eat honey (I know right!?) If that make me not a vegan - I say, "I am a vegan who has dogs and eats honey."

You have some beautiful pups - love them and care for them well and it's all good.

My wife and I are now committed to rescue and advocacy for animals. We will never again go to a breeder, but we will save as many as we can from the needle. We rescued our third pup from a mill four years ago and she is a beautiful and wonderful additon to our family.

I have been a powerlifter for several years and am switching to bodybuilding this year just to change things up. Looking forward to learning and sharing experiences.

One of my websites was recently added to an international listing of vegans online, and while they had a huge number listed from places like Australia, I pointed out to them that I was apparently the first listed from France --and they wrote back to confirm that this was apparently true.

France is several steps behind Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc. --and the few places where veganism seems to be understood as a concept are basically cultural borderlands, where they have some exposure to what's going on in Germany, or one of those other places.

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